Of the 25 retailers we assessed, 80% of them had a presence on Twitter. This suggests that, as mentioned above, Twitter is a social channel that works well for brands, supported by the fact that the companies we looked at had 69,895 followers on average.

We were surprised that none of the retailers we followed on Twitter reciprocated by following us back. This meant we weren’t able to send them a direct message to get in touch privately. While you could certainly argue it isn’t good practice to simply follow everyone back that follows you, we were actively trying to engage with these brands by asking them questions and referring to them directly and they still didn’t follow back. Following back your key customers and prospects will help them feel valued by your brand.